“Yes, father, that is right,” cried Marcus. “He praised you very highly at first, and said he was your friend.”
“My friend!” said Cracis, bitterly. “My greatest enemy, he meant.”
“I was, Cracis, in the past. In my ignorance and pride it was only after we had parted that I learned all that I had lost in my separation from my bravest colleague, my truest and wisest counsellor.”
“And now,” said Cracis, coldly, “you have found out the truth and have tracked me to my home to accuse me with some base invention to my son.”
“Believe me, no!” cried Julius, warmly, and he held out his hand. “Cracis, after much thought and battling with my pride, the pride that has come with the position to which I have climbed, I have mastered self so as to come humbly to my oldest and best friend.”
“Why?” said Cracis.
“Because you are the only man I know whose counsel I can respect, and in whom I could fully trust.”
“My greatest enemy comes to me to utter words like these, in the presence of my son?”
“Yes, and I am proud that he should hear them, so that he may fully understand that, when I spoke to him lightly as I did, it was but to test him, to try his spirit, to see whether he was fully worthy to bear his great father’s name.”
Cracis was silent for a few moments, gazing searchingly into his visitor’s eyes, which met his frankly and without blenching.